


Alexandra, lost

by miabicicletta



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post HLV, pre-exile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8052607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: He slides in between her palms and her beating heart; her fingers slide into his hair.





	Alexandra, lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AsteraceaeBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsteraceaeBlue/gifts), [Amalia Kensington (amaliak01)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaliak01/gifts), [lilsherlockian1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsherlockian1975/gifts).



> In an effort to beat back the awful writer's block I've had: this! An unplanned prequel to [Time gets harder to outrun](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7646461). 
> 
> Not great, but hope you ~~don't hate~~ like it.
> 
> Dedicated to a few lovely fandom friends, who are all kind, brilliant, and totally generous. <3

 

* * *

_As one long prepared, and graced with courage,_  
as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,  
go firmly to the window  
and listen with deep emotion, but not  
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;  
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,  
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,  
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.  
— Constantine Cavafy , [ The God Abandons Antony ](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/god-abandons-antony)

 

* * *

Dim, blue-yellowing light washes roofs, pavements, cranes. The 05:34 Highwell and Islington Overground rumbles west to Whitechapel. Shadwell shudders under the mechanic roar of the highline as it breaks over Cable Street. The shrill whine of refuse collectors wail in their reversal. Dogs bark. Doors slam. London. London. London wakes.

Here, another awakening: The rustle of cotton, the slide of a hand upon empty sheets. He moves from the window to the bed, watches lashes lift. She considers him from the pillow: tangled hair, mouth thin, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. He brushes a stray hair from her cheek, revealing a spray of freckles and moles. He counts as many as time and intention allow. To quantify is to draw a map of one’s data.

_What good is a map,_ that ever-present, haranguing inner voice asks,  _to one who cannot explore?_

“Soon?” Her voice is rough. Constriction in the throat, dryness of the tongue.

He reaches out to the nightstand. The cool ceramic returns a tactile memory of the previous evening: surprise; fear; grief; abandon. He hands her the mug of now tepid, undrunk tea, and admits, “Soon.”

She leans over the pillow, draws a sip, her arm outstretched. A droplet slides across her lips. She licks at it, and draws a hand along her chin when she has set the mug down.

 _Molly Hooper._ Information surges. Waist-to-hip ratio, .74. Hair length, 22 inches between root and L1 vertebrae of the lumbar curve. There is no name in his memory for that shade of goldcopperbrown. There will never be another gallery or workshop or autumn where he might investigate.  

He slides in between her palms and her beating heart; her fingers slide into his hair.

 

_It’s not a trick?_

_No. I wouldn’t._

_No, she repeats. You wouldn’t._

 

Above his head, below her heart: “What were you looking at? Or for.”

 

_Nothing. Everything._

 

The dip from one manubrium to the next makes a path his fingertips to must follow. “Just London.” As it was, as it is. As he imagines in ten years time; in fifty; in a hundred. “It’s my favorite place.”

Her arms come around his shoulders. "I know." 

Fingers link. “Home.”

Molly's jaw tenses, tightens. “It'll be here, Sherlock. It will always be here.”

“I’m counting on it.” He strokes her cheek. “She’s got history on her side. Reigns of terror. Madness. Out-and-out war.”

Her mouth twitches. “Tube strikes. The Olympics. Sherlock Holmes’ boredom.”

“The very worst of humanity,” he says with gravity, though without his express consent, his mouth and eyes crinkle at her humor, even now. “She can survive anything.”

Her fingertips scrape his chest. “Not everything.”

He leans over her, face to face, hip to hip. His voice hardens with his grip. This is not a subject he will allow for debate. “ _Anything_ _._ Always _."_

Tears glitter on her lashes in the fractured morning light. Molly kisses him as though it will hide her grief. Does she think he cannot see? Maybe. He convinced her of his blindness so well over the years, she may well believe he is blind to her still.

He kisses her tears. Shows her every bare facet of the truth he denied them both, and will deny again.

 

_Hesitation before the fall. You could—_

_She touches his palm to the skin of her abdomen, small, warm, soft. I could._

 

She watches him dress, lying in white sheets dotted with pale blue and yellow flowers that resemble blossoms which grow in his mother’s garden. He doesn’t know the name of them. He tells her as much.

Her fingers trace the fabric above her stomach. “Perhaps I’ll find out,” Molly whispers. 

She looks up, eyes catching his. She understands.

A knock. Once, then twice.

In his housecoat, she looks so small, and suddenly, so aggrieved. Her expression is hard. He lifts her downcast face, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones.

“Chin up, Molly Hooper. It’s not the end of the world.”

The corner of her mouth tips up ironically. She leans into his palm. “No,” she lies, truly. “I suppose it’s not.”  

He pulls the column of her pony-tailed hair to one side. A memory floats between them. She smiles down at her feet again, and when she looks up once more, the expression on her face is at once so bright, and so kind, so pained, so _determined_ , he hates every imagined excuse for leaving it too late, for leaving it too long.

She mirrors his posture, touching his face. And smiles.

This, Sherlock Holmes knows, is the forgiveness he could not ask for, and that Molly chooses to grant anyway. Despite every cruelty, every silence, every denial. Despite every plan he’s wrecked. He will never understand it, her strength. He will never understand her. A graph of incomplete value; a map, ultimately unfinished.

And yet, there is a part of him that believes he could dedicate a lifetime to the puzzle yet never know the wonders of Molly Hooper. The thought is oddly a comfort. It gives him a measure of the strength required for what lies ahead.

On tip-toe, her mouth touches his cheek. “Always,” she promises.

His hand tightens around her wrist. “Always,” he vows.

 

A bell strikes the hour.

The door opens.

He leaves.

 

_Always._

 

* * *

 

 _It's not a trick, your senses all deceiving_  
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust.  
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving,  
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.  
— Leonard Cohen, _[Alexandra Leaving](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbGsEV5yvns) _

 

**Author's Note:**

> [The God Abandons Antony](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/god-abandons-antony) is a twentieth-century poem by Constantine Cavafy which recalls a story from antiquity: The Roman general Marc Antony looks out over the city of Alexandria as it is besieged by Octavian. He is abandoned by his patron god, and his city is lost to him. The poem is a plea to remain steadfast and see clearly the events that have lead him here. To focus on his achievements and his effort, to not fall entirely into self-pity, recrimination, or doubt. 
> 
> [Alexandra Leaving](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbGsEV5yvns) is a reimagining of the poem in song by Leonard Cohen. The main character has brought about the end of his relationship with his eponymous lover, but attempts bravery and self-awareness enough to acknowledge his part and the love they once had. 
> 
> I always imagine Molly living in the East End or north London, because I love/loath those areas, also, closer to Barts.


End file.
